#i was really tempted to go pull panels from rots/sb94/etc to illustrate each point (loneliness nobility kindness etc) but

[mamawasatesttube]

just thinking out loud here but i feel like a lot of popular perception of kon esp in online fandom spaces is colored by his joie de vivre and all the times he's silly and goofy. which i do of course adore!! i love when he's silly and goofy. but comparing that perception to, that of like, clark or kara, i feel like kon gets shunted into the box of "dumb comic relief character" a lot more easily. lots of factors probably contribute to that (sb94 having a bad rep, while no other kon comic really goes into a lot of his tragedy; conflation with the side of the fandom that doesn't read comics; the fact that comparatively postcrisis kara doesn't have a team the way kon has yj and clark is seen as a more capable adult, so other characters in the jl get the "dumb comic relief" short end of the stick more often; etc) ...

... but what really gets me about him is that he does embody a lot of the same traits as the rest of the kryptonian superfam. he's so extremely kind. he's got that same noble heart as the rest of them; he cares about everyone and he wants to protect everyone. and he's so, so lonely. he struggles between cultures and worlds where he feels like he doesn't belong to either. he is so strong and capable and holds so much power that it scares him.

cradles him gently in my hands. he contains multitudes... come closer don't you want to love him 🥺